Arcane Topics in Economics and Philosophy, Interspersed with Various Distractions

December 08, 2011

Incendiary Quote from *Principles of a Free Society*

The following is the incendiary climax of Chapter 5 in Principles of a Free Society:

A thief, or a philanderer, might look for arguments against the rights of property, or marriage, with which to justify himself. He will prefer strong arguments but will settle for weak ones if they are all that he can find. And herein lies the importance of Hobbes: that although his case for sovereignty must be one of the weakest arguments a philosopher has ever penned, yet it is the best defense that can be made of the cowardly subservience and statist bigotry with which much of mankind has, for thousands of year and still in the present day, not only submitted to-- that might be done in a spirit of meek but unbowed nonresistance, as Socrates submitted to his Athenian jury and Christ to Pilate and the Sanhedrin and Gandhi to the British Raj, hating the sin while loving the sinner-- but condoned, endorsed, approved, cheered, praised, honored, respected, believed in and aided even the most brutal, unjust, and lying rulers, and sneered at and persecuted those who spoke truth to power, all of which can, thanks to Hobbes, be summed up in a word: sovereignty.

Now, doesn't that make you want to buy the book and see how I got there?

Comments

himself. He will prefer strong arguments but will settle for weak ones if they are all that he can find. And herein lies the importance of Hobbes: that although his case for sovereignty must be one of the weakest arguments a philosopher has ever penned, yet it is the best defense that can be made of the cowardly subservience and statist bigotry with which much of mankind has, for thousands of year and still in the present day, not only submitted to-- that might be done in a spirit of meek but unbowed nonresistance, as Socrates submitted to his Athenian jury and Christ to Pilate and the Sanhedrin and Gandhi to the British Raj, hating the sin while loving the sinner-- but condoned, endorsed, approved, cheered, praised, honored, respected, believed in

justify himself. He will prefer strong arguments but will settle for weak ones if they are all that he can find. And herein lies the importance of Hobbes: that although his case for sovereignty must be one of the weakest arguments a philosopher has ever penned, yet it is the best defense that can be made of the cowardly subservience and statist bigotry with which much of mankind has, for thousands of year and still in the present day, not only submitted to-- that might be done in a spirit of meek but unbowed nonresistance, as Socrates submitted to his Athenian jury and Christ to Pilate and the Sanhedrin and Gandhi to the British Raj, hating the sin while loving the sinner-- but condoned, endorsed, approved, cheered, praised, honored

justify himself. He will prefer strong arguments but will settle for weak ones if they are all that he can find. And herein lies the importance of Hobbes: that although his case for sovereignty must be one of the weakest arguments a philosopher has ever penned, yet it is the best defense that can be made of the cowardly subservience and statist bigotry with which much of mankind has, for thousands of year and still in the present day, not only submitted to-- that might be done in a spirit of meek but unbowed nonresistance, as Socrates submitted to his Athenian jury and Christ to Pilate and the Sanhedrin and Gandhi to the British Raj, hating the sin while loving the sinner-- but condoned, endorsed, approved, cheered, praised, honored, respected, believed in and aided even the most brutal, unjust, and lying rulers, and sneered at and persecuted those who spoke truth

I have not read your book, but I see in the reviews that you state that we should be free to roam about the earth, yet at the same time feel that we should still have conditions applied to allowing people to do so, such as tax restrictions. How do you resolve this apparent contradiction? I also wonder whether you approach the issue that since government by definition must initiate force against the individual in order to make them act a certain way, it cannot possibly exist in a free society.